You own the right to license your play into different markets (like tours, stock and amateur productions, foreign territories, etc.), and in all different media (television, radio, film, digital streaming, etc.) anywhere in the world. Producers at the Broadway, LORT, Off-Broadway, and even Off-Off-Broadway levels might request a portion of the revenues you earn after their productions. Nonetheless, you are not obligated to grant any portion of your subsidiary rights revenue to any third party who is not your co-author.
A production qualifying for subsidiary rights revenue participation should be a professional premiere production (i.e., a full production with a cast working under an Actors’ Equity contract, including sets, costumes, and lighting) which has been presented for a significant number of consecutive, paid public performances (i.e., a run of sufficient length to add value to your play; for example, 21 paid public performances, including an official press opening and no more than eight previews) and for which the author has received appropriate compensation, billing, and approvals.
Any grant of subsidiary rights participation should only be for a limited period of time, based only the income received by the author, from a well-defined geographic area (e.g., the United States and Canada), and should be proportionate to the value-added by the producer’s production.
Subsidiary rights include the myriad of ways in which an author can license a work after its initial stage production, such as:
- Stock and amateur stage productions;
- Foreign stage productions;
- Movie and television adaptations;
- Other derivative works based on the play (cast albums, podcasts, commercial use products, publishing, etc).
- Authors retain the copyright in their work but, if a producer presents a premiere production, a producer customarily “vests” in a specified share of an author’s subsidiary rights revenues for a limited amount of time, and from certain sources of revenues, in certain territories.
A producer may, under certain circumstances, share in the author’s subsidiary rights revenues by producing any of the following:
- Equity Workshops (the author may be required to grant a share of subsidiary rights to the cast for an AEA workshop, but not for an experimental or lab production);
- Equity Showcases;
- LORT/Non-Profit mainstage premieres;
- Premiere commercial productions in any particular territory.
- The amount, scope, and duration of such producer participation in an author’s subsidiary revenues varies, based on the different levels of “vesting” productions, on the theory that the production is adding value to the author’s copyright, and that the bigger the production, the greater the value. Even when “vested,” however, producers may not participate in author’s revenues from certain uses (such as publishing, including music publishing), and if the producer is the party actually producing or licensing the particular use, then it’s not a “subsidiary right,” and thus no share is appropriate.
It is also neither customary, nor typically recommended, for authors to grant such participation based purely on:
- Commissions;
- Developmental work (staged readings, contests, festivals, second stage productions, etc);
- Amateur (i.e., non-Equity) productions;
- Anything less than a full professional production, including an official press opening.
- Nor is it customary to grant such participation to non-authorial collaborators, except under rare and extraordinary circumstances, including to directors, dramaturgs, actors, or designers. Please see the DG’s Considerations for Directors Agreements for an understanding of if, when, and under what terms it may be appropriate for directors to receive such a participation from an author.